How to solve the Loading-Screen-Problem?

[Nyel]

Title is the question. It's getting out of hand with the loading screens, I need to shut down WoW in 20-30% of all loading screens to Dalaran. What's wrong since 7.1?

And yes, I tried the thing with deactivate streaming but it doesn't work.

[Soisoisoi]

I've had no issues where I need to exit WoW. What exactly is happening, is it not responding, or? If it is that, you can just wait it out. Try without any AddOns enabled to see if that fixes it.

[Nyel]

I've had no issues where I need to exit WoW. What exactly is happening, is it not responding, or? If it is that, you can just wait it out. Try without any AddOns enabled to see if that fixes it.

Either way it takes an eternity to load until it works in the end or it completely gets stuck in the loading screen for 4-5 minutes and you need to restart the whole game.

[Alvito]

There are sever threads anout this on the wow forums. Updating drivers dumping cache files and even a complete wipe and reinstall isn't fixing it for the poor bastards hit with this. It is extremely annoying and Blizzard is still giving the generic check your stuff it isn't us replies.

[Deleted]

I have the same problem. Tried the different solutions thrown around(Clear cache, disable streaming etc.) and nothing helps so far. Draining my will to play when i have to retry loading screens 2-3 times an hour and loading screens on a high end gaming rig is 3+ mins where as before 7.1 i rarely if ever had more than 10 sec.

Hope blizzard will fix their shit soon. Seems quite a bit of people have the problem and some people are talking about it possibly being tied to the hotfix patch checking that occours on zoning in/out of stuff.

[Deleted]

Doing HS back to garrison, almost always I have to kill WoW process and restart, then it loads. Doing HS back to Dalaran, it takes an incredibly long time. The rest of the loading times have also gone way up.

[Colmadero]

I don't seem to be having this problem.

Then again, I have WoW on a SSD which works wonders.

[Deleted]

I don't seem to be having this problem.

Then again, I have WoW on a SSD which works wonders.

My WoW is also on an SSD with a high end gaming rig, it matters nothing. Its a problem from blizzards side that affects a bunch of people but far from everyone. Be glad you are not affected and the rest of us will cross our fingers that they'll fix it some day.

[Deleted]

I don't seem to be having this problem.

Then again, I have WoW on a SSD which works wonders.

I'm probably half-n-half here. I do have the game installed on SSD, but I still have some long loads that makes Win10 go "hey, you wanna close this thing or wait?" now and then. I've tried disabling addons, clearing cache, even reinstalling WoW, but nope, still happens. And like so many others, happens more after 7.1 than before. I'm just glad that I do have SSD, because experiencing this with a HDD would make me go nuts!

[aziras]

My computer does this occasionally. And did so since I came back with a fresh install on Windows 10 in Legion.

For the sake of getting all the details on the table I also have occasional freezes that happen sometimes within 10 minutes of boot and disappear on a reboot. By freeze I mean complete halt of everything (but not blue-screen). I believe Win10 botch a lot of the graphics drivers and memory management.

Memory management is also what I expect is causing the load screen issues for me. Since superlong load screens appear to be tied to:
1) areas I have never been to before
2) areas with many players

#2 is a bigger problem right after a patch.

Theory:
The caching in wow is broken. I run on an SSD and used to have lightning fast loads in 6.x, now in 7.x it is painfully slow, except when there is nothing to cache!
If I enter an area I have just been in, without any new models it goes super fast. If I enter a place I have not been in a while it is slow as hell and sometimes halts (in these cases the mouse is still active, so it is not graphics freeze).
I believe caching either goes in circular refresh loops or otherwise end up refreshing massive amounts of data. The computer is not responsive when it happens, so it is hard to check disk/processor caches.
It also appears that caches expire in this version. They might have a timed expiry causing the data to be invalidated if it is too old (might have something to do with hacking prevention). Or it is triggered by hotfixes that cause everything to refresh "just in case".

Other observations: loading transmog item pages also takes a very long time (adding to suspect texture cache) and number of unknown objects in an area clearly affects the load time.
I used to be able to zone into an area and have models "pop" for the first few seconds after showing the screen. This almost never happen anymore. It could be related and Blizzard changed it to show the load screen for longer to avoid that popping effect.

What works for me:
1) disable all addons (not a huge effect, but I do this "just in case")
2) zone to dalaran (might have to re-start wow if it locks up)
3) run around to load as many players as possible
4) repeat for org. (go SW/IF if alliance)
5) go to the usual suspect raids/dungeons to refresh their caches
6) re-enable addons

Play happily until next secret cache reset.

Works like a charm to fix the problem every time. Kind of scary that this fix consistently works and that it consistently breaks - yet Blizzard tech support is always recommending to wipe the cache (which for me just makes the problem EVEN WORSE until everything has loaded once).

[Mad_Murdock]

Is this US or EU servers? If US, what servers?

I imagine the answer will be the various high pop servers

[Deleted]

Is this US or EU servers? If US, what servers?

I imagine the answer will be the various high pop servers

Happens to me on 4 different servers in the EU atleast.

2 high pop, 2 low pop aswell.

[Nyel]

Is this US or EU servers? If US, what servers?

I imagine the answer will be the various high pop servers

I'm playing on a low pop EU server.

On my parents PC I did not have those loading issues, on my PC I've got them. Doesn't make any sense but I really hope Blizzard will fix this. Dalaran port is nearly useless with this crap.

- - - Updated - - -

It's just becoming worse. I can't even log into my Paladin who used the Dalaran HS.

[Regalbeast]

Buy an SSD

[Nyel]

Buy an SSD

Already got one, doesn't prevent the issues.

[Deleted]

Buy an SSD

Yeah, I have to confirm what others have already pointed out in this thread; I have my Windows on one SSD, and WoW on another. Makes absolutely no difference. Still having these insane load times, and even getting completely stuck while loading. Even did a fresh install just a while ago, had the loading problems.

Company tech supports typically have these lists of things they dump on the customer to do and check, partly to see if those very obvious things are actually the reason, and partly to buy them time and deniability as far as responsibility goes. We've seen this a million times with WoW; some things that are 100% obviously at Blizzard's end, and have later on been confirmed to be such, pop up, and their tech supports start going through those predetermined lists, starting with stuff like "have you checked that your PC is plugged in", and so on.

It doesn't take much to put two and two together here. Problem doesn't exist. Patch comes. Problem exists. Wonder what caused it. Must be a user error. On thousands upon thousands of users.

[Tziva]

I've had this issue since the Legion pre-patch actually with some characters. Unfortunately one is my main. Loading screens are insane - probably 4+ minutes.

I've cleared the cache, I've reinstalled the client, and I'm running WoW on an SSD. Disabling addons does nothing. My machine is decent, and my ping is 12ms on average. Since it's specific to some characters, I'm concerned a UI reset might be the only way to fix but I reeeeeeally don't want to do that, especially if it's not even a guarantee it will fix (since disabling addons doesn't work).

But maybe that information is helpful to other people.

[spiritsurge]

I don't have serious issues but literally the day 7.1 released I started having really long load screens and strange lag. When I cook food for my character the game freezes for 1-2 seconds after I cook anything and I've noticed this happening for other things like opening follower mission crates at my class hall.

[Mad_Murdock]

I'm playing on a low pop EU server.

On my parents PC I did not have those loading issues, on my PC I've got them. Doesn't make any sense but I really hope Blizzard will fix this. Dalaran port is nearly useless with this crap.

Well, if it happens on 1 PC and not the other. Odds are pretty good it's a PC problem. The challenge is figuring out what is different between the 2 pcs. First thoughts are things like Anti-viruses, firewall differences along with OS differences. Assuming 7.1 does something different than 7.0x, finding out what they are doing different is step 1. Then what on the not working system might be causing the issues.

If we go with something like Wow needs to download the gameobjectcache.wdb everytime you log in and when you log in at dalaran it causses it to have to download more or have to index the file or something on that lines, then the question is, why would cause a delay or denial of that action happening. First thought is anti-virus might be locking the file in a way WoW doesn't like. Or maybe a firewall setting. Obviously the challenge in narrowing it down is tough if only a small percentage of people are seeing the issue and those people aren't overly tech savy.

Not sure what you have tried, there is all kinds of side tweaks you can do to see if you notice any difference. Like disabling AV, Firewall, Disabling the pagefile, run wired over wireless, log into your pc with a different profile (aka user account) run wow directly(wow-64.exe) versus the launcher. Run 32 bit wow instead of 64bit wow or vice versus.

Not sure how much access you have to the parents PC, but if it's working fine, obviously comparing settings might give you a clue.

[Sierra85]

Since it's specific to some characters, I'm concerned a UI reset might be the only way to fix but I reeeeeeally don't want to do that, especially if it's not even a guarantee it will fix (disabling all addons, for example, does not help).

could you try a fresh install in a new directory (or on another drive) ? then that way you still have your original world of warcraft folder backed up, and you can test load screens on a fresh install?